A Case of Conscience Themes

The social concerns, which are central to dozens, perhaps hundreds of science fiction works of the period, are actually secondary to Blish's main purpose in A Case of Conscience. Their role is merely to provide supporting evidence. What Blish is really interested in, and this was to become the theme of much of his major fiction in the years to come, was the problem of evil and, more specifically, the relationship between evil and secular knowledge. Blish was a trained scientist and a technocrat by inclination, but, over the years, he became increasingly dubious of the value of scientific research. In the Cities in Flight series technology made possible the salvation of humanity. In A Case of Conscience, however, it is very definitely a double-edged sword.

It is secular knowledge, after all, which created nuclear weapons and gave humanity the ability to destroy itself. In Blish's novel, technology is responsible for the hellish conditions of the Shelter society on Earth and it is also responsible for human presence on Lithia, a presence which will lead directly to Lithia's destruction while indirectly doing enormous damage to the Earth as well. Historically religion has had little place in science fiction; most writers have either ignored it or kept it carefully stored on the shelf reserved for such conventional pieties as motherhood and apple pie. Blish is one of the few science fiction writers to introduce it into the foreground of a work. Ruiz-Sanchez, the protagonist of A Case of Conscience, was appointed to the Lithian Commission as a biologist, but he is also a Jesuit priest and Lithia quickly becomes for him not merely a study in scientific development, but something much more...

(The entire section is 705 words.)

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